BYD Qin Plug-in Hybrid Electric Car Is CRUSHING It In China

I shared China’s 2013 electric car sales numbers in January. The total for all models came to 6,795. “In the first weeks of 2014,” BYD reports that about 6,000 units of its new Qin plug-in hybrid electric car have been sold!

Holy cow.

I’ve noted previously that sales for the BYD Qin were expected to be high, but this is better than I expected.

BYD notes that these ~6,000 sales account for “over half (50%) of the Chinese new-energy vehicle market.” Of course, that puts it well at the top of plug-in car sales in China.

And the party’s just started. “Analysts are not expecting sales to slow down any time soon as both Shanghai and Beijing announced earlier this month that they will now permit BYD new energy vehicles to qualify for local municipality green-vehicle incentives and be licensed in those regions. These signals along with the Chinese government’s new fund committed for clean-air and fuel-efficient technologies in the form of consumer and government purchasing incentives are launching a new era in the China domestic automobile industry.”

Here’s more info on the BYD Qin and other electric car plans in the works:

BYD Senior Vice President Stella Li stated, “the news that QIN is a top selling vehicle should come as no surprise as there is simply no other vehicle this fast, efficient, stylish and affordable on the market, anywhere.” The QIN consumes only 1.6 liters of fuel for every one-hundred kilometers (~62 miles) and accelerates 0-100 km/h (60 mph) in 5.9 seconds. This is only the first of many of BYD super-electric vehicles launching as the electric version of the S7-styled SUV internally named the Tang (pronounced “Tah-ng”) is set to be released later this year. The QIN is currently available to domestic Chinese and Latin American markets and senior officials at BYD have discussed expanding exported versions of these new energy vehicles in the coming years.

We’ll keep you posted as more BYD Qin news comes in.

Here are 2013 China plug-in car sales again: